Unmasked
by Imperator Justinian
Summary: Lucario is tasked with finding out what lies underneath Meta Knight's mask. Just one problem: he's Meta Knight.


Well, my first SSB story. I do apologize in advance if some characters are a bit OOC.

* * *

It was a relatively quiet day at Smash Manor. There were an unusually low amount of matches, Captain Falcon had only Falcon Punched two people so far, Kirby hadn't devoured the entire contents of the kitchen and Crazy Hand demolished just one wall in his morning rampage. So, with no carnage to occupy them between the carnage, the smashers wandered aimlessly around the manor, wasting their time as they saw fit. And was the case with a group of three, who were just chattering mindlessly as they walked along a particularly long corridor.

"So, where's your twin run off to this time?" Ike questioned his angelic companion.

"Dark Pit?"

"Last time I checked." Pit ran his hand through his mess of chocolate locks, trying to formulate a response to the mercenary's questioning.

"I think he said something about going out with Marthtwo." the Lucario next to Ike let out a dry chuckle at the nickname for Lucina, given to her by Pit's clone after she refused to stop calling him 'Pittoo', despite hearing it for the umpteenth time. After that, the three just kept walking until the Aura Pokémon decided to speak out telepathically.

"What ever happened to Snake?" The other two smashers tensed momentarily at his questioning, but kept on walking before Ike decided to provide an answer.

"You remember the Halberd, right?" Lucario nodded an affirmative.

"Yes, Meta Knight's battleship. But I fail to se-"

"Well, both of their tragic fates are connected." Ike began.

* * *

Snake stumbled out of the only bar in Smash Town, eyes bloodshot, wobbling and with the distinctive odor of alcohol on his breath. In short; he was sloshed. He drunkenly stumbled down the road, nearly tripping on his own feet on multiple occasions, and somehow managed to wander into a park. He scared away the children playing nearby with his antics, before crashing into a tree.

"Hey!" he slurred in the general direction of the vegetation. "Watch were you're goin', bud."

When the tree failed to reply, Snake took that as an insult and started hurling words at it. When the tree still refused to respond, the drunk decided to switch to hurling grenades. Unfortunately, due to the lacking basic motor skills in his current state, every single one of his explosives missed the piece of foliage, but succeeded in incinerating everything else in the park. Satisfied with his handiwork, Snake managed to walk out of the public park turned warzone, only to realize he needed a ride back to the manor. So, after a few more minutes of stumbling, he found the vehicle that would be his ticket home; Meta Knight's beloved battleship, The Halberd, which was currently undergoing repairs from the Subspace incident and looked to be nearly complete. The mercenary walked up the boarding rump and into the ship, completely oblivious to the silent alarm that he had just triggered.

In the cockpit of the metal gargantuan, Meta Knight's two squires/engineers were currently working underneath one of the control panels when a series of red lights started going off. Sword Knight and Blade Knight immediately dashed out from their positions underneath the console, leaving behind a number of metallic tools and loose wires behind, and scurried over to the security panel. One of the green knights pressed a series of keys before hitting a flashing red button, pulling up security camera footage from all across the ship.

"Oi! Who's that?"

"Ay, dunno. 'ooks ay nem Smasher." came Blade Knight's unintelligible reply.

"Yeah, now that you mention it, he does look familiar. What was his name again? Dragon?" Sword looked to Blade, who only offered a shrug before pointing back at the screen.

"Heh, he's drunk."

"Sor aw erm hem, ay rehab?" once again, the small knight's mouth guard got in the way of his speech, but that didn't seem to keep Sword from laughing at his joke.

"You can say that again. But I don't think Meta Knight 'ould want any freeloaders." the diminutive knights then went for their swords and charged out of the cockpit only to find Snake a few feet away from the door.

"Hic... Outta my way..." the man in grey slurred, clearly not up for any sort of negotiation.

Blade and Sword charged at him as fast as they could, weapons drawn, and collided with his legs with all the fury they could muster. They immediately started hacking away at his boots, blissfully ignorant to the fact that they were leaving nothing more than a few scratches on the metal, and only succeeded in unbalancing the drunken mercenary for a few seconds.

Snake clearly got fed up with their futile attacks, and being three times the size them, easily bunted the two squires aside and proceeded into the command center.

"Now..." he started, looking over the series of panels, all the different colors and flashing lights on them nearly blinding him in his drunken state. "Which one of these starts this thing?"

The Metal Gear character then started randomly pressing buttons and flipping switches, somehow managing to start the engine and rocket the battleship towards the manor. Which happened to be some twenty or so feet away. The ship crashed through the massive wall, giant edifice of Meta Knight's Mask first, and alerted the entire structure to the collision. Master Hand and Crazy Hand, the latter wearing an oversized hand puppet, pushed through the crowd to see the massive mess of metal and stone.

"YAAAAY!" The Crazy Hand yelled out in a display of his namesake characteristic, hovering up and down rapidly in giddy excitement at the destruction. "CHRISTMAS!"

The deranged hand then formed a fist and punched a hole through the front of the Halberd's cockpit, pulling Snake out by his collar. The hand then proceeded to shake him by it, like he was some sort of toy, before flicking him across the room and looking back into the ship. Snake skidded across the hard, marble floor, coming to a stop at the purple boots of the masked and caped knight who owned the ship. He quickly sobered up at the color of the Star Warrior's eyes, which were red to the point he looked possessed.

* * *

"And, let me guess;" Lucario began, interrupting Ike's flashback. "Snake was sent to live on a farm upstate?"

"No. Master Hand put him in rehab. Indefinitely."

"Snake's lucky that's all Master Hand did." Pit chimed in. "Given how powerful Meta Knight was the last tournament, I don't think the hands could have stopped him."

"You can say that again." The Pokémon muttered under his breath, reminiscing to the time that the diminutive Star Warrior creamed him on the deck of his hijacked battleship, mistaking him for a member of the Sub Space Army.

"Say what... again?" The trio immediately spun around at the sudden inquiry, Pit's wings spreading out in shock and smashing into Ike's face during the sudden frenzy. The mercenary spat out a few loose feathers that had somehow managed to end up in his mouth, before his eyes landed on the sight of a small, circular being, wrapped up in blue cloth and covered in cold steel.

"That you were way too powerful in the last tournament, Senor Noodle Arms." Pit replied, tactless as usual. Lucario facepalmed at the angel's obliviousness, while Meta Knight's eyes flashed red for a moment at hearing the nickname.

"Senor Noodle Arms?"

"Yeah; the nickname the fan base gave you after Sakurai redesigned you." Pit explained, as if Meta Knight cared more about how he got the nickname than the nickname itself. Surprisingly the Star Warrior let the demeaning name go and addressed Pit's other point.

"I wanted to leave an impression." the knight's Spanish accent rang out, carrying with it a tone of slight hesitation.

"You did a great job of that, I still have the one you gave me on my a-" the bluenette next to Pit growled out, before being elbowed by him.

"Ike!" Pit whispered into his ear after managing to pull the muscular man down to his height. "Watch your language, we have to keep this a T!"

Meta Knight just watched the entire exchange with passive disinterest, considering whether or not he should just leave the three to their own fourth wall-breaking business, but decided against it for reasons that were beyond him.

"Perhaps I was somewhat harsh." he conceded, drawing the attention of the three and interrupting Ike and Pit's argument about the grading scale.

"Somewhat!? You scared away Roy, kept the infirmary so full that Dr. Mario had no time to join in, and Mewtwo refused to come back until he was guaranteed you'd take it down a notch." Ike retorted. Meta Knight huffed indignantly, the only sign that he was at a loss for words for once, and teleported away before the Radiant Hero could go on about poor Pichu. And that entire exchange would have most likely been forgotten within a week had Pit not decided to ask a question;

"I wonder what Meta Knight looks like under that mask?"

"Nothing good." Ike replied, but that did little to satisfy the Angel's curiosity.

"Maybe he's a vampire?"

"You've been reading to many horror stories." Lucario chastised.

"Really? Then prove it." Ike and Lucario stopped in their tracks and turned to Pit, both afraid of what challenge he was about to issue. Pit then wordlessly produced a old instant camera from his pocket. Neither were really sure how he managed to fit it in there, but being as the Angel was practically a walking arsenal and kept a variety of weapons hidden away on him at all times, his pockets literally being pocket dimensions wasn't out of the question. Pit then shoved the camera at Lucario, who grabbed it in a shocked silence.

"You want me to take a picture of _Meta Knight_? _Without_ his mask on?" taking a picture of Meta Knight was bad enough, but without the mask? Was this angel trying to get them killed!? Sure, Plautena could just revive him if he ever croaked, but he was risking more than just his own neck with this harebrained scheme; even trying to look at the Star Warrior without his mask on was a mandatory death sentence.

"Yep!" Pit replied cheerfully, complimented by a toothy grin. Ike and Lucario looked at him like he had gone crazy.

"Give me one good reason why I should even consider doing that?" Lucario demanded.

"I'll get Viridi to stop trying to recruit you for the Forces of Nature." The Pokémon dropped his scowl at the angel for a moment, conceding to himself that actually was a compelling reason. From what Pit had told him about the nature goddess, and seen himself; she would always get her way, or destroy her entire army trying. And the last thing Lucario wanted was to get drafted and end up getting his tail handed to him by Pit in another dimension.

Besides; Pit would probably have to do something pretty demeaning to get anything out of the bloodthirsty deity, so that in of itself would be payback.

As Lucario mentally weighed the options in his head, it really just came down to who gave him a better chance of living; a deranged goddess and clueless yet powerful angel who doubled as a munitions depot, or the reclusive knight who could curb stomp him in two seconds flat? In hindsight, he probably would have had a better chance with Viridi, but the Pokémon still extended his paw.

"Fine." Lucario said hesitantly. "I'll do it."

Pit grabbed his paw and shook it, sealing their deal, and then went off, cackling manically to himself about how he had succeeded in reviving _Brawl in the Family_. Lucario donned a brown fedora and sped off in the opposite direction Pit took, leaving only Ike left in the hall to curse his luck for always being stuck with the crazies.

* * *

Before stalking Meta Knight, Lucario knew he would need practice, so he decided to pick a less suspecting target to follow. That target happened to be the Prince of Altea; Marth. And during the course of his observations, he finally did lay to rest the age old question; yes, Marth is a guy. Considerable far more confident after making that groundbreaking discovery, the Pokémon decided he should begin his investigation by questioning his target's roommate.

Despite the fact that Master Hand was something of a control freak, he didn't exactly help himself by forcing people who disliked each other to share a room together, such as Kirby and King Dedede, Snake and Wolf, and Pit and Dark Pit. So, one would naturally assume that putting an upbeat, bubbly and overly-optimistic pink puffball and a dour, bookish and reclusive knight with a low tolerance for fools in the same room would result in the latter literally deflating the former within a week. Curiously enough, the two somehow lived in peace, meaning that Jigglypuff would be Lucario's best bet for any information regarding the Star Warrior.

"Sorry, Lucario," Jigglypuff began, clearly unsettled by the fedora-wearing Pokémon's line of questioning. "But I don't think he ever takes that mask off. He even sleeps with all his armor on."

Before Lucario could ask anything else, the Balloon Pokémon floated away as fast as possible, leaving the other Pokémon alone in the hallway, until Pit dropped by.

"How's the spying going, Fedora the Explorer?" Lucario rolled his crimson eyes at the chocolate haired angel's incredibly bad pun, but still turned to face him.

"So far, nothing. Not even Jigglypuff has seen him take off his mask."

"What!? He has to take it off sometime! What about when he eats?"

"He just tilts it up and uses chopsticks." Pit then put a hand to his chin, clearly trying to come up with a way around that.

"What if he can't use chopsticks? Like if he has to eat a hamburger?" Lucario shook his head, the appendages on his head swaying back and forth.

"Then he doesn't eat. Remember that speed eating contest a few months ago?"

* * *

No one knew how Kirby had managed to convince the small knight to join the contest, but no one really had any time to ask. Not that Meta Knight would even acknowledge his own presence at the event to begin with. Master Hand had just finished going over how the rounds would work and their rules, with "Clearing off your plate" being the most important, and motioned for the contestants to begin.

While everyone started gorging themselves on the food set out before them, the Popstar resident simply took his plate and dumped the contents on the floor behind him, before placing the empty platter back on the table. Needless to say, he was disqualified. Ultimately the contest ended in an upset with Pit winning against Kirby, due to the latter dropping the last scoop of ice cream on the floor, but Meta Knight was not seen again for a week.

* * *

"Man, he really is serious about not taking that mask off. I guess he needs to keep it on so he won't burn up."

"Meta Knight is _not_ a vampire, Pit!" the Pokémon groaned out.

"Then how do you explain why he doesn't like having his picture taken and uses bat wings instead of regular wings?" Once again Pit somehow managed to pull two valid, if not flawed, points out of nowhere. Probably the same obscure place he puts all his weapons.

_"Maybe I should be shadowing him instead..." _Lucario thought, giving the somewhat smug angel a suspicious glare, before returning to his previous point.

"Some people just don't like having their picture taken, and I don't take Meta Knight as being a very outgoing person." Pit opened his mouth to reply, but before any words could come out he quickly shut it and pulled Lucario behind a nearby pillar, placing a finger to his muzzle to keep him from objecting. His sapphire eyes then tilted slightly to the left, motioning for his unwitting hostage to look in that direction, to see the small knight he was about to be stalking walking in the direction he had come from. The Aura Pokémon then felt Pit's elbow slightly shoving him out from behind his cover, wordlessly urging him to follow the miniature warrior.

He shoved away the angel's hand, and looked out from behind the supporting structure to see if the metal-encased being had departed. Seeing no one else around, and desperately wanting to get out of the claustrophobic position he was in, Lucario quickly bolted down the hallway. He managed to quickly catch up to the Popstar resident without giving himself away by diving behind cover when available, tiptoeing across the room, and every other spy cliché imaginable. Unfortunately for Lucario, the façade of stealth he had built up came crashing down the moment he tripped on virtually nothing, knocking over a flower vase in the process.

As if events were conspiring against the poor Pokémon, that vase and its stand collided against a bookcase, somehow managing to topple it in an egregious display of fridge logic, and launching an avalanche of books onto an unsuspecting Charizard as it collapsed with a spectacular crash. Charizard, who was startled by the sudden commotion and impact, let out a few flames in surprise.

The books surrounding him made for great kindling.

To make matters even more bizarre; Crazy Hand came bolting out of an opposite hallway, shouting gibberish and spraying silly string everywhere before floating off, cackling like a madman.

Lucario looked past the devastation to see that Meta Knight hadn't so much as flinched during the entire ordeal, rather continued waddling down the hallway to his destination. It was at that moment the Aura Pokémon realized that Meta Knight was fully aware of his stalking, but was probably so used to the madness that happened around him every day he simply didn't care. Besides; what harm could the Fighting/Steel type really cause him? The Star Warrior turned a corner, quickly followed by Lucario, and entered a room before quietly closing the door with a simple click, one that would have been impossible to hear over the nearby chaos had Lucario not been listening.

The dual type spun around the corner to see that Meta Knight had entered his room. Not knowing what else to do, or what was even compelling him forward at this point, though he did know that it would likely end in a very bloody death for him, the Pokémon reached out to the doorknob. The Aura Pokémon was surprised to find it unlocked, he imagined Meta Knight thought no one would be stupid enough to try to sneak into his room, and he edged his face forward slightly, a single red eye darting from one end of the room to another looking for any sign of the miniature smasher. When, much to his surprise and fear, the Pokémon saw none, it pushed the door open as slowly as possible and tip-toed into the room.

The room he found himself in looked like it had been divided down the center by the occupants. One side was relatively scarce and orderly; a simple bed, half-full bookshelf and chest occupied the small area without any decorum. The spartan side of the room was clearly Meta Knight's, as the other side of the room looked like someone had dropped a stick of lit dynamite in a can of pink paint and waited for the results. It was then that Lucario noticed the bathroom door was open, in addition to the sound of the sink running and a distinctive smell (to the canine-like Pokémon at least) of toothpaste emanating from it.

The Pokemon brought up the old camera he had carried with him, and snuck up to the doorway. He waited until he heard the water stop running to jump in the doorway, startling the blue puffball at his sudden presence in the mirror he was looking at. The unmasked Meta Knight spun around to say something, only to freeze up at the realization that his mask had been discarded, and was further dazed by the incredibly bright flash from Lucario's camera. The Aura Pokémon, who was too focused on the task at hand to even get a good look at his subject, used the time the flash had bought him and hightailed it out of Meta Knight's room.

Lucario ran down the hallway as fast as his feet could take him, and quickly stole a glance at the picture that was hanging out of the camera. The image on it caused him to literally stop in his tracks. A small, blue puffball, probably only slightly taller than Kirby, yet still sharing his rosy blush, stared back at him with innocent white eyes, a childish expression of shock plastered on his face. The fact that this harmless looking thing could be one of the most feared smashers managed to arise a multitude of feelings within the Pokémon. It was similar to when he first discovered that Samus was a woman underneath all that armor, but at least she could still silence half the manor with a simple glare when not wearing it.

Meta Knight looked like a stuffed toy that belonged in the arms of some child, giving them reassurance whenever they had a nightmare.

Unfortunately, the fact that Lucario had stopped running came to back to kick him in the butt. Literally. The reckless investigator managed to look upwards from his position face down on the floor to see a fully armored Meta Knight standing on top of his back, with Galaxia drawn and mere centimeters away from his neck. The now trapped Pokémon didn't even have to look in his eyes to feel the unbridled fury emanating from the Star Warrior.

"Surrender the camera to me, IMMEDIATELY!" the warrior spat out, edging his blade even more precariously close to Lucario's jugular. The Pokémon quickly did as told, and the knight that was somehow weighing him down quickly snatched it with a gloved hand and teleported away, to busy seeing red to even notice the outdated design of the camera. Lucario pushed himself off the carpet, and looked behind him to see the photograph he had taken. It was crumpled, and slightly ripped due to the sudden force of his body, but the image on it was still clear as day. The blue Pokémon ran off to find Pit before the incensed Star Warrior could realize his error.

* * *

A few weeks had passed since the incident occurred, and after Meta Knight's appearance became known he was scarcely seen, appearing only to participate in his obligatory matches. Lucario felt guilty about the whole ordeal, he knew that the Star Warrior was probably humiliated beyond belief, and that it was his fault. He would have apologized, had he been able to find the knight and not had an overwhelming fear of a gruesome death.

So the Pokémon did what he usually did in his free time; train. The Pokémon hiked a good distance away from the manor to a relatively isolated hill that was marked by only a single, withered tree, and began. He had made his regimen far more straining in the recent weeks, as something of a self-imposed penance, and began going through all the physically exhausting exercises in his head until a distinctive accent shook him out of his reverie.

"You should not be too hard upon yourself." Lucario's head jerked upwards to see Meta Knight perched upon a sturdy looking tree branch, wrapped up in his cape like usual. Though his eyes were their usual yellow, he still gave off the ominous feeling that a hawk getting ready to swoop down and snatch its prey would. Lucario's mind ran through many different thoughts and options as he took a cautionary step backwards, causing the puffball watching him to let out a dry chuckle.

"There is no need to apologize, I have observed your remorse." the Pokémon was taken aback once again, and was even compelled to question him about his spying, only to bite his tongue at the realization he had no ground to object. Rather he decided to approach a different subject.

"So... you forgive me?"

"Yes," Meta Knight began, letting Lucario let out a sigh of relief. "And as a sign of goodwill; I shall give you a ten second head start."

The Pokémon bolted at hearing the Kirby character's declaration, running so fast one would have thought the devil himself was chasing him. Meta Knight just chuckled at his handiwork, and dropped down from his perch in the tree. He produced a think tome from underneath his cape, and sat down at the foot of the mighty oak to read, content that he was still able to strike the fear of God into someone.

* * *

And, with that, done. I would like to apologize with, at least in my opinion, the somewhat rushed ending. Sadly this story suffered from poor planning on my part; I thought this would be some 800 words shorter, and I had an overabundance of ideas for certain parts that I had to cut out and a lack of ideas for the ending that I could only vaguely draw on. Still, I guess I'm happy with how this one-shot turned out, even if it wasn't as funny as I hoped it would be.


End file.
